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Arash Markazi is an American sports journalist currently writing for Sports Illustrated.

Markazi, who is Persian, was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Los Angeles, graduating from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks in 1999. He attended the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University as a freshman before returning home to attend the University of Southern California, where he received a degree in Print Journalism from the Annenberg School for Communication in 2004.

He wrote for basketball and hip hop magazines while he was in college, contributing to publications such as SLAM Magazine, XXL, King magazine, Rides and Tongue. He also wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News and Associated Press. He gained prominence, however, with a weekly column he wrote for the Daily Trojan, the school’s newspaper. His most infamous story was a column in which USC sophomore receiver Mike Williams spoke badly about several of his teammates and coaches and told Markazi he planned to enter the 2004 NFL Draft. The column is still cited whenever a story is written about Williams’ premature departure from USC.

While he was at USC, Markazi won journalism awards, including the Scripps Howard Top Ten Scholarship, Freedom Forum-NCAA Sports Journalism Scholarship, Jim Murray Memorial Scholarship, Alan Malamud Memorial Scholarship, Lisa Davidson Memorial Scholarship and three Gold Circle Awards. Following his graduation in 2004 he was hired by Sports Illustrated. He also wrote for Sports Illustrated on Campus, appearing on the cover of the March 31, 2005 issue, and began writing a weekly column for Sports Illustrated’s website SI.com called "The Hot Read." When he was on vacation in August 2005, he had actor/comedian Jay Mohr fill in for him. Mohr now has a weekly column on SI.com. Markazi was also credited with hiring Jenn Sterger, leader of the FSU Cowgirls, to write a weekly column for the site. Markazi's intimate and quirky portraits of Wayne Gretzky, Ronaldo, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush caused the Los Angeles Times to name him one of the Faces to Watch in 2006. He also wrote and compiled the Top 10 Party Schools story that appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in May 2006. It was only the third time the magazine had ranked the best party schools in its over 50-year history.

He is a two-time cancer survivor and a cancer advocate.

• Sports Illustrated on Campus cover
• MidEast Connect cover
• Arash Markazi's SI.com writer archive
• Arash Markazi's On The Scene Blog
• Arash Markazi's MySpace page